The €1,000,000 cliff: one euro of price, €20,000 of tax

That is the single most expensive sentence in Valencian property tax, and almost nobody explains it before the deposit is paid.

What the rule actually says

Since 1 June 2026 the transfer tax (ITP) on a resale property in the Valencian Community is 9%. The regional law then adds one sentence: where the value of the property transferred is more than one million euros, the applicable rate is 11%.

Not 11% on the excess. Eleven per cent on everything.

English buyers read that and assume it works like income tax at home, in bands. It does not. It is a cliff edge, and the drop is twenty thousand euros wide.

The numbers

Exactly one million is still taxed at 9%, because the law says more than a million. The euro that matters is the one after it.

What this is worth in a negotiation

If the price you have agreed sits just over the line, moving it back to exactly €1,000,000 is the best paid hour of your purchase.

Agree at €1,010,000 and your total outlay, tax included, is €1,121,100. Agree at €1,000,000 and it is €1,090,000. You knocked €10,000 off the price and saved €31,100.

The arithmetic holds at any price above the line: getting to exactly one million saves you the discount plus at least twenty thousand euros. There is no other conversation in a Spanish purchase where an hour of haggling is worth that much.

Sellers rarely know this either. It is not a trick, and it does not need to be presented as one. It is simply the reason a house is worth more to a buyer at €1,000,000 than at €1,020,000, and any reasonable seller can follow the sum.

The part that catches people: it is not your price, it is the value

Here is where careful buyers still fall off the cliff.

The threshold is not measured against the price on the contract. It is measured against the taxable value, and for property that value is the reference value published by the Catastro, unless the price you paid is higher, in which case the higher figure applies.

So the Catastro can push you over the line on its own.

Agree a price of €980,000 on a villa whose reference value is €1,010,000 and the tax is calculated on €1,010,000, at 11%, which is €111,100. Had the reference value come out at €995,000, the bill would have been €89,550. Same house, same money out of your pocket, €21,550 of difference decided by a figure neither you nor the seller set.

Nobody should be signing a deposit contract on a property anywhere near a million euros without checking that reference value first. It takes minutes, it is free to consult, and on a purchase of this size it is the cheapest number you will ever look up.

What we do about it

On any purchase in this range we pull the reference value before the deposit contract, not after, and we tell you where it lands relative to the line. If it sits just above, there are usually only two honest routes: negotiate the price, or accept the bill with your eyes open. Both are better than discovering it at the notary.

New builds work differently and this rule does not touch them: a first sale from a developer pays VAT plus stamp duty, not ITP.

We are independent lawyers and tax advisors on the Costa Blanca, with offices in Moraira and Dénia. We are not the agent and we take no commission on your purchase. If your property is anywhere near a million, send us the address and we will tell you which side of the line it falls on before you commit to anything.